Washington ? Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday that “employment will begin to increase more quickly before long,” and that erecting protective trade barriers was not the answer to the nation’s current worries about the loss of jobs to foreign competition.

Wading into the political issues of jobs and Social Security, Greenspan said that erecting protectionist barriers was not the answer to foreign competition. He also said that Congress would have to address the problem of the pending retirement of 77 million baby boomers.

He repeated his warning that Congress would have to trim future Social Security benefits during testimony before the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

Greenspan, in response to a question from Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said that the government cannot afford to meet all of its promises for Social Security and Medicare.

“We do not have enough in real resources to meet the promises that have already been made. We will not be able to fully meet the benefits to the next generation, the baby boomers that are retiring,” Greenspan said.

Greenspan’s comments about the need to trim retirement benefits provoked a firestorm of criticism when he made them last month, with critics charging that Greenspan was urging benefit cuts at the same time that he was urging that President Bush’s tax cuts be made permanent.

Greenspan said Thursday that he believed some tax increases would be needed to bolster Social Security because the funding gap was so large that it could not be closed entirely by trimming benefits. But he said Congress should start with benefit reductions before moving to tax increases because higher taxes would act as a drag on economic growth.

On the economy, Greenspan said the nation had reason to be more optimistic that job growth would rebound in coming months.

Since President Bush took office in January 2001, the country has lost 2.2 million jobs.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testifies before the House Education and the Workforce Committee on Capitol Hill. During Thursday's testimony, he said Congress would have to trim future Social Security benefits with 77 million baby boomers about to retire.